“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me.” Okay, it’s official. Medieval-Russian-fairy-tale-based stories are forever my new favorite genre. Katherine Arden KILLED this book. The narration of this book starts by introducing you to a family in a harsh Russian winter, and then you are there as the main character, Vasilisa (or Vasya), is born. This story is told in a beautifully written third person narration, surrounding Vasya, her family, the people of her town, the creatures in the forest, and the young priest who stumbles into their village. Vasya is wild, and possesses the same magical gifts as her mother and grandmother. It portraits fear and courage and skepticism and superstition vividly. There is so much meaning and emotion beneath the beautiful surface of this story. Each character is complex and deep. No one character is truly or completely good or evil. They have layers, backstories, and you can connect with any of them. They’re so realistic in their emotions, while at the same time being these mystical, medieval, fantasy characters. Each of their characters developed and changed over the story, in different ways. You can see the paranoia creeping into the lives of an entire village of people, watching as they become their own undoing and having Vasya fight to protect each and every one of them. This is also totally a kick ass feminist novel with Vasya defying the life that has been forced upon her, becoming someone that no one expected, doing things no one at the time thought women could do, and taking control of herself- it was so AMAZING and honestly totally pumped me up. The sequel, The Girl in the Tower was equally stunning. I highly, highly recommend this entire series (the third one comes out in January 2019 and I’m actually SO excited to read it). I highly, highly, (HIGHLY) recommend that you move this to the top of your TBR pile! Title - The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilolgy #1) Author - Katherine Arden Publisher - Random House Book Birthday - June 27, 2017 Pages - 368 Social Media - www.katherinearden.com/ Twitter - @arden_katherine Grace C., EO Blogger
1 Comment
Grace
2/25/2019 09:58:28 am
JUST FYI— rereading the series right now so I can read the final book and they’re JUST AS INCREDIBLE the second time!!!!!!!!
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